Social Media Strategies – Twitter Knowledge Required

Companies are beginning to post knowledge of Twitter as a requirement for positions they are hiring for.

When the electronics chain store Best Buy in Richfield, MN, posted a job a job for a senior manager in emerging media marketing, plenty of attention was shifted towards new age job requirements. One of the position’s requirements was that applicants needed to have a minimum of 250 followers on Twitter.

Supposedly, this was the first time many job applicants and career counselors ever heard of such a requirement. With many companies now having in-house social media marketing departments, there is no wonder why such new age requirements are now a necessity.

When it is knowledge of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or YouTube, emerging corporations are finding the necessity in social media outlets. However, does having 250 followers on Twitter really mark a person as having expertise in it or other emerging media marketing areas?

After Best buy perused comments on this, which began to pop up all over the Internet, they decided to temporarily pull the listing. What did they do to turn this around? They asked people to log onto their idea exchange and assist in re-crafting the job posting to more appropriately reflect the proper skills needed for the position.

Some people added comments that the usual person can easily obtain 250 Twitter followers without much trouble. Where, others replied that possibly a better way to know if a person is proficient with social media platforms, they should have achieved the “Triple Crown of Social Networking: 1,000 Twitter followers, 500 Facebook friends, and 250 LinkedIn connections.”

In previous articles I have written on social media trends, I commented on how social media is allowing the small one-person business to duel it out for clients alongside Fortune 500 corporations. This shows that the larger companies definitely are grasping at the new trends and using them to better their position in their niche markets.

I a recent social media strategist certification program I recently completed with Social Media University, a large amount of participants were corporate marketing managers learning the basic ins and outs of emerging media.

Other companies are requiring job applicants to send links to all of their social media pages to include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others. Job interviewers are now using what applicants have posted on their pages in order to form a good picture of who the person is, what they believe in, and their level of professionalism in using emerging media marketing methods.